All conversations about building new pro sports facilities need to begin with the notion of private financing. Through bonds and private investment, the idea of a soccer stadium is a very good idea.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowtiz wants a soccer team to land in Brooklyn, but Queens is a better fit. Soccer is growing rapidly, and Markowitz is right about that, but it is growing partly because of the immigrant groups that are coming into the country.

They play soccer in all parts of the city, but it seems that a soccer arena would be a perfect match for the Flushing Meadows area, so long as there is still some part of the park leftover.

A new arena will likely become a political turf battle. Brooklyn does have a beautiful sports history and culture, but if there was a sport that belongs in Queens, it is soccer. In fact, if you spend time in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, you see tons of people playing soccer.

It’s a great place for this sport, and it’s a nice gesture to growing immigrant populations in the city. Soccer belongs in Queens. Markowitz is right that it is played all over the world, but Queens is such a good fit for a project like this, that it would be a missed opportunity to not build it in the borough.

In the end, a soccer arena that shares space with a nice park like Flushing Meadows means that the park has to be taken into account with the construction of a new arena.

It cannot be a concrete eyesore, it has to be the kind of arena that people who do not even like soccer, would not mind. This is a good opportunity to embrace a growing sport.

The Next Big Wave

For those energy enthusiasts, the very young wave energy industry is going to be a major player for coastal regions in the future.

Wave energy basically is a set of turbines on the ocean floor that spin with the incoming and outgoing waves. For the most part, it has only been tried by British companies. But there are some American firms, almost all less than ten years old, that are working on a standard for future wave energy.

This column has focused a lot on alternative energy. Biodiesel, made with soybeans instead of corn, will prove useful if the government sticks with it in the early stages. Solar energy is being taken seriously…finally. In disagreement with a lot of folks in the environmental crowd, natural gas lends us awesome potential for a clean-burning energy source, once it is regulated.

We know that the weather is getting more severe. We know the tides are strong enough to produce energy. Why not use this unlimited power source to produce clean energy? If “time and tide wait for no man,” then let’s put the tide to good use.

Like any new energy source, it will take government investment, but would later be taken on by investment bankers and venture capitalists. The reason why this should be on our minds is because there needs to be a way for us to get some good out of the powerful tides that have done so much damage. This energy source will work – as to how far away it might be, that is up to us.